Rearview Mirrors
by Vecturist
Summary: Carson reflects on what he’s done. Lots of anguish. Zelenka reminds him he’s not alone. Tag to Allies.


Title: Rearview mirrors

Rating: K+

Season/Spoilers: Tag to Allies. Season1 and 2 Carson moments.

Summary: Carson reflects on what he's done. Lots of anguish. Zelenka reminds him he's not alone.

Lost. He felt so lost; he didn't know where to begin. All he knew was he, Dr. Carson Beckett, had clearly crossed the line, broken the Hippocratic oath, and severely muddied all that it stood for. Trouble was, he didn't quite know where the line was anymore. A true cynic might have said that he'd crossed it when he first set foot in the Pegasus galaxy, and begun his research with the artificial ATA gene, protocols that more than likely would not have been approved by any sort of governing body back on Earth. At least he'd been quite successful, better than half those injected now possessed the gene with no side effects. It simply took or it didn't.

Perhaps he should have quit will he was ahead. Some of his colleagues had spent entire lifetimes trying to duplicate what he had accomplished with the ATA gene. Success had come so easily, until he had arrived on Hoff. At that point he'd been forced to evaluate his definition of success. They, even Perna, had considered the results of his research cause for celebration. At that point, he could still see what the line was, and realize he was treading dangerously close. Perhaps he should have realized he needed to tread more carefully, that events in the Pegasus galaxy could distort things like a rearview mirror.

Maybe he should have seen what happened with Ellia and Colonel Sheppard as a flashing red neon stop sign, a warning of things to come. Who had he been trying to kid? It all seemed so simple. Design a retrovirus to overwrite the Iratus bug DNA, make the Wraith human again. Tame the Pegasus version of the schoolyard bully, Teyla and her people no longer living in fear. He buried his head in hands for a moment. Even with Micheal, he'd never fully considered the consequences of his actions. Or maybe he'd just lived in his own illusion, immune to the screams of another Wraith strapped to a gurney in the infirmary, a testing the potency of the retrovirus. An illusion abruptly shattered like fine crystal flung across the room as the Queen slammed her palm down on the test subject's chest and pronounced the experiment a success.

This delusion of his came with a high price. Now three of his friends were missing, probably dead, and the Wraith were headed towards Earth. He'd been used, led blindfolded over the line, spun like a player in blind man's bluff, trampling on all he held sacred, not realizing where he was until it was too late, and there was no going back. He'd designed a weapon capable of wiping out, or at least altering an entire species.

He'd hidden away on one of the more remote balconies of Atlantis, wanting to escape the fear that beginning to enshroud Atlantis, like the highland fog. That he could deal with, he'd done so before. What he didn't want to witness were the smug 'I told you so looks' and the sympathetic looks for what they'd been blackmailed into developing, and even worse, the guilty looks on the senior staff's faces. For they were guilty. Accessories to the murder of six billion souls, accomplices to ushering in a new era of terror. Destroying five sixths of a solar system was one thing, but who could absolve them of their guilt for this?

A mug was suddenly thrust into his hands. He looked up to see Radek Zelenka, his partner in crime standing next him, with a mate to his mug, exhaustion etched into his features. Carson lokked at him for a moment. He still felt guilty that he wouldn't have been able to save the man from the nanovirus. Another failure. He took a tentative sip. Coffee heavily laced with brandy, not the usual moonshine the engineer was reputed to brew.

"Figured you could use it," Zelenka commented softly, as Carson downed the mug's contents. Both men were silent for a few moments. "Not our finest hour, I admit." Zelenka's words came out as barely more than a whisper. "The perfect slight of hand, Lead the eye elsewhere, distract, anything to conceal what's really going on. Show us what we want to believe." Carson realized the man was expressing his own frustration at not detecting the Wraith virus sooner. The Czech prided himself on knowing Atlantis' systems inside and out and was now looking in his own rearview mirror, playing 'if only.'

Both men were silent for a few moments, before Zelenka spoke. "We'll think of something."

"We have to," Carson nodded. He'd already crossed the line, spat upon the oath. What were a few more steps? Unless they were steps back to where he had started, when he began this journey.

FIN


End file.
